Cuban Latin Jazz Band A3 Performs in Lahore

After being assigned to teach in the National College of Arts (NCA) by the Cuban embassy three months ago, the band decided to hit the road and give the Pakistani audience a taste of Jazz enriched with the unique Cuban music. “All our names start with an A and that is how we came up with A3 — Ariel, Ana and Alberto,” states band member Ariel Jorge Pérez Caballero, a graduate from the Superior Institute of Arts in Cuba. “We play all kinds of genres but focus mainly on Cuban music as it’s easy to mix specific sounds when you have complete knowledge of them.”

Their performance in Lahore was indeed a majestic one. Starting off with a jazz song titled ‘Punjab’ and ‘Caribe’, the trio earned quite an impressive response from the enthusiastic fans despite not even being a native of the country. The crowd went nuts when the band performed the well-known Cuban song titled ‘Chan Chan.’

“Many things here [in Pakistan] are similar to Indian music; we know Indian music through Ravi Shankar and this has made it easier for us to understand local music here in Pakistan,” says Caballero. “We can integrate Pakistani instruments into Cuban music and also, mix western sounds into Pakistani music — it’s like we live in the same world now.”